Year 7 out of school activities

At the same age, my daughter actually dropped all of her outside interests and just wanted to see friends. My daughter doesn't regret giving up anything. It depends on the size of the school he's moving to, but many have lunchtime clubs and after school clubs as well. My daughter has come across five clubs she wants to do at her new school, and is doing two of them. School clubs are also a great way of getting to know other pupils in the first year as well.

Every school and child is different. My daughter just wants to see friends or chill out when she gets home, have a shower, have tea and then at 6.30pm will happily get her homework out and work until 9pm. She will spend about four hours at the weekend. My friend's son who goes to the same school puts in about 7 hours a week, so it depends on what the child wants to achieve with his/her homework. Your son will have time for other activities, but it might be a good thing during the first few weeks to have the pressure off as they have to start thinking so much more for themselves and planning. It does settle down though.

Ask secondary school for HW policy. They should tell you expected time per day that should be spent on HW.

I agree with Articwaffle that what is manageable will depend very much on school and length of commute. My son is in Year 7 and does a couple of regular extra-curricular activities per week. I think that if he wanted to he could easily fit in a couple more.

My DD does drama club, netball and basketball - training sessions for the latter two are at lunchtime, but fixtures are after school.

No problems with homework, she has about 30-45 minutes a day (including weekends).

I'm shocked at the amount of homework some people's DCs have on here - I never had more than 90 minutes a night even in 6th form and I did seriously well at school...

What word factory said. Sometimes they have to choose- and sometimes you have to make decisions for them. I didn't let ds take up another instrument because he would've give up either rugby or football to make space. I felt that the sport was better for him socially anyway.

I'd say it depends a lot on the school, and their commute. My yr 7 (and my yr8 who was a yr7 last year) finish secondary at 3pm and are home by 3.15 and they don't have loads of homework, so they do have lots of time for after school clubs and activities. So they've each been doing several clubs straight after school at school, and 2-3 evening activities too. But that wouldn't be possible if they had a long commute or lots of homework.

Should be fine - butkeep reassessing.

I have a year 9 who does loads of stuff and keeps up well with her homework. But we do have to be ferociously efficient.

How we used to work it with Scouts was that if homework was finished, he could go, and if not, not.

This is harder to maintain for things that mean letting the team down or missing an expensive swimming lesson!

My Y7 DD still does loads of things out of school - piano, band, choir, dancing and swimming as well as being quite involved at church. She just has Thursday night with no activities. However, unless she is at netball/football/badminton club, she is home by 3.30pm and always has time then to do any HW. She also deliberately saves up any HW she can until Sunday afternoon when she gets on and does it.
This works for her, but she is quite organised and also has a very good memory and seems to pick things up quickly.

I have a very busy year 7- so far he has kept on top of everything while playing in school teams and also playing for his out of school football team and out of school music lessons and drama club and Scouts! After school team practices and matchs usually finish by 5 which means he's home by 5.15, so loads of homework and practice and down time. Out of school football training is on Tuesday and doesn't finish til 7.30, so homework for Wednesday needs to be done on Monday (or occasionally Wednesday morning ) Drama and Scouts are both on Friday- so that's OK. I've moved his music lesson to Saturday.

You need to constantly check with them that they are still happy with the schedule, and they aren't just doing it because they think you want to. But it's fine. My dd was the same- never wanted to give anything up. The plus side is that she is now 17, still busy, and the most organised person I know!

Depends how much time each thing takes up once you've factored in getting there, changed and back home. If it's a case of 'stroll down to the Scout hut at 7, spend an hour and come home', fine; if it takes the whole evening from 5 till 9 that's not going to work.

It depends how many school clubs he wants to join. He will be able to do football at school most likely for free and he may want to do this instead. If he does no school clubs it is probably fine if he comes straight home and does homework but if he wants to take part in lots of school clubs that are usually free he may find it all a struggle.

It depends on the secondary.

My DCs have on average 90 min of homework each weekday evening and about 2 hours.at the weekend at their selective. Their mates, who went to the local comp, have hardly any.